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Use this content strategy to come up with 100+ content ideas that will provide value for your audience.
Creating a content marketing strategy with educational information is a powerful way to connect with your audience, establish your brand as a thought leader, and drive engagement. It took a while for me to get into the right rhythm for content creation, but now that I found a solid process that works, this process is not only enjoyable but also crucial for helping businesses grow strategically. By following this structured approach, you can uncover 100+ content opportunities to speak directly to your audience and demonstrate your expertise.
Firstly, a solid content strategy goes beyond just content creation. It should encompass well-defined content goals, a clear understanding of your target audience, strategic distribution channels, and measurable success metrics. The primary objective of your content is to engage your audience—whether through education (offering valuable tips and strategies), entertainment (sharing brand-specific updates or CEO insights), or building credibility (showcasing customer success stories).
Here’s how we at mrge Marketing guide our clients through the process of ideating educational content topic ideas, with added insights to maximize the impact of your content strategy.
Even if you’ve heard this a million times, I’m telling you again - your target audience is foundational to creating content that resonates. Without understanding them, your content efforts are likely to miss the mark. Conduct extensive research to grasp the following about your audience as it relates to the solution your product/services offers:
Their Goals: What are the primary objectives they are trying to achieve? Understanding their goals allows you to tailor your content to help them reach these objectives.
Challenges in Reaching Those Goals: What obstacles stand in their way? Addressing these challenges directly in your content shows that you understand their struggles and positions your brand as a solution provider.
Motivations: What drives them to seek solutions? Knowing what motivates your audience helps in crafting content that not only informs but also inspires action.
Interests: Both business-related and personal interests can inform content topics that are more engaging and relatable.
Trends that Could Impact Their Success: Keeping an eye on industry, market or economic trends that could affect your audience allows you to provide timely and relevant content that keeps them informed and prepared.
Where They Seek Information to Make Decisions: Understanding the platforms and sources your audience trusts for information will guide your content distribution strategy.
Action: Write down at least 10 of your audience's pain points.
For example, our target audience consists of small to mid-size B2B businesses needing to elevate their marketing, their pain points might include:
Once this research is complete, the next step is to reframe their challenges into ideal outcomes that resonate with your audience.
This may take some deep thinking, but it’s important because this is what your audience is actually trying to achieve. By focusing on their outcomes, you’re speaking their language in a much more clear and valuable way.
Action: Reframe your 10+ audience pain points into ideal outcomes. Once they’re reframed, these ideal outcomes become your content categories.
Here’s an example of how our audiences' pain points may be reframed into ideal outcomes.
Reframing pain points as goals not only makes your content more positive and solution-oriented but also demonstrates that you understand where your audience wants to go and how you can help them get there.
With these outcomes now defined as your categories, the next step is to brainstorm 10-15 content pieces within each category. I use several techniques to generate ideas to ensure that the content is both relevant and valuable.
Action: Write down at least 10 topics within each category.
Let’s dive in:
Customer FAQs: Start by reviewing the most common questions your customers ask. These questions reflect real-world concerns and can be a goldmine for content topics. We have an FAQ bank that we continue to update and make reference to when thinking about content ideas.
Sales & Social Media Team Input: Your sales team interacts directly with potential clients and hears their concerns and objections firsthand. Leverage their insights to identify content topics that address these issues, making your content highly relevant and practical.
Forums and Online Communities: Explore forums like Quora, Reddit, or industry-specific communities to see what your target audience is discussing. Participating in these discussions can also provide inspiration for content that directly addresses your audience’s needs.
Google Search Console: Analyze search queries that bring visitors to your site. This data provides direct insights into what your audience is searching for, allowing you to tailor your content to meet their needs.
Brainstorm with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs): This is highly recommended for technical or niche topics. Involving SMEs ensures that your content is accurate, detailed, and authoritative. This collaboration can also lead to the creation of advanced content that appeals to a knowledgeable audience.
Google Suggests:: Tools like Google’s autocomplete feature can spark ideas based on popular searches. These tools can also help you identify trending topics that are gaining traction.
Chat GPT: Leveraging generative AI can also give you insights to other topic ideas within each category. Make sure you add information about your business and details about who your target audience is before asking for content topic ideas. Also keep in mind that GenAI repurposes information that exists so refinement of the topic ideas will be necessary.
Perplexity: This AI-driven tool can be used for topic ideation, offering a range of suggestions along with sources to ensure your content is relevant. Reviewing these sources allows you to see what others are writing about and identify gaps you can fill.
Social Listening: Monitor social media platforms for trending topics and discussions related to your industry. Social listening tools can provide insights into what your audience cares about, allowing you to create timely and relevant content.
Competitor Analysis: Review the content your competitors are producing. Identify areas where you can offer a unique perspective or more in-depth coverage to differentiate your content.
Customer Surveys: Conduct surveys to directly ask your audience what topics they are interested in. This feedback can be invaluable in ensuring your content aligns with their needs and expectations.
After generating 10+ topics under each category, it’s essential to validate them to ensure they’re worth pursuing. Validation ensures that your content efforts are focused on topics that have the potential to drive traffic, engagement, and conversions.
Action: Remove or refine topic ideas based on your research.
Here’s how you can validate your topics:
SEMRush: Use SEMRush’s Keyword Overview & Magic Keyword tools to assess the SEO difficulty of ranking for specific terms. These tools also provide insights into search volume, competition, and related keywords, helping you refine your topics for maximum impact.
Google Keyword Planner: Use Google Keyword Planner’s "Discover new keywords" feature to understand the monthly search volumes, competitiveness, and growth trends for your keywords. This tool helps you identify keywords with high search volume and low competition, which are ideal for driving organic traffic and key for SEO content writing.
Competitive Scanning: Perform a competitive scan by searching your topics on Google. Review the top-ranking articles to understand how your competitors are approaching the topic. Consider how you can offer a unique angle, deeper insights, or additional value to differentiate your content while keeping SEO in mind.
Content Saturation Check: If your topic is very popular and widely covered, think of ways to spin the conversation. For example, you can focus on a niche aspect of the topic, present a contrarian view, or offer a more practical, actionable approach. If the topic is too saturated, consider deprioritizing it in favor of more unique content.
Engagement Metrics: Review your existing content's engagement metrics (e.g., page views, time on page, social shares, comments) to identify patterns in what resonates with your audience. Use these insights to prioritize topics that are likely to perform well.
With 100 or more topics on your list, the next step is prioritization. Effective prioritization helps make sure that your content efforts are focused on topics that will drive the most significant impact. In a team setting, I’ve used a voting system, but first I make sure the following are considered:
Current Market Trends: What’s happening in the market that your audience needs to know? Prioritize content that addresses timely issues or emerging trends that your audience is likely to be interested in.
Seasonal Relevance: Consider upcoming seasons, holidays, or industry events that could influence your audience’s decision-making. Seasonal content is often highly relevant and can drive significant engagement.
Content Gaps: Prioritize topics that fill gaps in your existing content library. By addressing these gaps, you can create a more comprehensive resource for your audience.
Just to recap - by thoroughly understanding your audience’s pain points, reframing them into actionable goals, and methodically brainstorming and validating content topics, you can build a content strategy that not only educates but also engages and converts. Prioritizing these topics ensures that your efforts are focused on the content that will have the greatest impact at that specific time.
In today’s fast-paced digital world, staying ahead of the curve means a commitment to continuously learning about your audience, your niche and adapting as needed. As you develop and refine your content strategy, remember that the goal is to build lasting relationships with your audience by consistently providing them with valuable, relevant, and insightful content. With a clear strategy and a focus on delivering meaningful results, your content can become a powerful tool for growth and differentiation in the market.